New Delhi, June 16 -- Not all protected areas are created equal, and most aren't even in the right place. Despite covering nearly 17 per cent of Earth's land surface, many protected areas (PAs) are not effectively shielding biodiversity from the growing tide of human-driven threats. A global study has revealed that a majority of PAs fail to coincide with regions facing the most intense ecological pressures, calling into question the very foundation of current conservation practices.

Using data from 33,379 species and 255,848 protected sites, researchers examined how PAs overlap with six major drivers of biodiversity loss: agriculture, logging, hunting, pollution, invasive species, and urbanisation. The results, published in the journal C...